Graduates and recruiters report growing use of AI to draft CVs, cover letters and prepare for online assessments and video interviews. Tom, 22, from Maidstone, says he used AI to help manage over 200 job applications before securing a restaurant manager role, describing the process as exhausting and demoralising. Many employers reportedly tolerate AI use in applications within limits, though the boundary between acceptable assistance and cheating remains unclear.
bbc.co.uk
· 2026-10-13
Wonder Tools, a newsletter covering useful apps and sites, published a roundup of five techniques for overcoming writer's block. The suggestions include using dictation apps, running timed writing sprints, and applying AI-generated prompts to get past a blank page.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-13
A technical writing blog post coins the term 'polyglot docs site' to describe documentation projects that must combine outputs from multiple language-specific API reference generators into one unified site. The author argues these sites require special effort to keep fonts, colors, and search functionality consistent across tools built for different programming languages, despite the underlying code libraries being loosely coupled.
technicalwriting.dev
· 2026-10-09
An author writing a book about the dangers of chasing every new productivity tool interviewed actor Tom Hanks for his perspective on staying grounded amid a glut of technology. Hanks offered his own views on how to avoid getting swept up in constant tool-switching and tech-driven distraction.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-09
A software blogging guide catalogs frequent mistakes made by beginner technical writers, with 'meandering intros' flagged as the most common problem. The author argues that many developers open posts with unnecessary backstory and context instead of quickly signaling who the piece is for and what benefit it offers, and recommends readers be given a clear reason to keep reading within the title and first three sentences.
refactoringenglish.com
· 2026-10-07
A new study examining Claude Opus 5.5 found the model frequently relies on certain words and phrases, including 'dependable' and 'quietly', that can signal AI-generated text. The research reportedly found that em dashes, long considered a giveaway of AI writing, are not a reliable marker for this model.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-07
Marketing firm Graphite analyzed writing from frontier AI models by having them rewrite 10,000 pre-ChatGPT articles from summaries, then compared the results to the original human text. The study identified over 13,000 words and phrases that appear at least twice as often in AI writing as in human writing, with each model showing distinct habits—Claude Opus 5.5, for example, overuses 'dependable' and phrases like 'this matters.'
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-01
Dartmouth College is investigating provost Santiago Schnell after its student newspaper, The Dartmouth, found signs of AI-generated text in writing published under his name. Schnell said he used AI for editing and clarity, but when the newspaper ran his own explanatory statement through an AI detector, it also flagged that text as AI-generated. The controversy began after Semafor reported on AI detection tool Pangram finding AI use across opinion pages at major outlets.
entrepreneur.com
· 2026-09-30
A recent controversy in France's literary world has intensified public scrutiny over whether written and spoken content is AI-generated. Commentary describes attending a conference where a speaker's talk carried recognizable ChatGPT phrasing, such as stock transition lines, prompting the observer to disengage from the presentation.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-09-28
Haitian-Canadian author Thélyson Orélien won France's Prix du Roman Fnac for his debut novel 'C'était ça ou mourir,' and the book has also been shortlisted for the Goncourt, Renaudot, Femina and Médicis prizes. A French watchdog group called Balance ton Claude claims AI-detection tests on multiple passages returned '100% AI' results, an accusation Orélien and his publishers have rejected.
entrepreneur.com
· 2026-09-28
Researchers Liu, Lee and Bai ran a large between-subjects experiment where participants wrote hiring evaluations of resumes from a 'male' and 'female' applicant using an LLM autocomplete tool. When suggestions countered gender stereotypes, the female candidate's perceived competence and salary offers rose to match the male candidate's, but she was rated less likable, and the male candidate remained the overall favorite. Participants largely didn't notice the stereotype manipulation, focusing instead on the writing tool's usefulness.
countingfromzero.blog
· 2026-09-27
Benchmarking site Arena analyzed high-reasoning Text Arena responses from August and September 2026 and found Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 uses far fewer em dashes and semicolons than Opus 5, along with shorter, simpler sentences. Em dash usage fell from 15.2 to 0.8 per 1,000 words, and average sentence length dropped from 12.14 to 10.03 words, though overall answers grew longer, from 453 to 481 words on average.
bleepingcomputer.com
· 2026-09-26
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